Registering Landsat images by point matching

Image registration of Landsat Thematic Mapper scenes with translational and rotational differences is studied. Two major steps of image registration, control-point selection and control-point matching, are emphasized. In control-point selection, the properties that a good control point should satisfy are defined. Several potential control-point candidates are suggested, and methods are discussed for extracting them from the input image. In control-point matching, a relaxation algorithm proposed in the literature is improved by reducing its time complexity from O(n⁴) to O(n³ ), where n is the number of control points. The matching algorithm also uses a two-way matching concept which utilizes the inherent symmetry property of the point-matching problem. The robustness of the proposed algorithm was demonstrated through simulation experiments by evaluating a matching index. Experimental results on Landsat images show that the proposed method produces results comparable to those obtained by an experienced photointerpreter